New voting dates shift GOP tactics

As the 2008 Republican presidential race heads into the summer, the campaigns are constantly reassessing their tactics as they wrestle with an unsettled primary calendar, a front-runner who is testing conventional wisdom, and the emergence of a new, high- profile contender.

With states still moving up their primary dates, what will the voting calendar look like and which states will carry influence? Can Rudy Giuliani, the former New York mayor leading most polls, win by de-emphasizing traditionally decisive conservative primary states? Will Senator John McCain of Arizona meet the fund-raising goal his campaign set for the second quarter, and what happens if he doesn't? And will the candidacy of former Tennessee senator Fred Thompson change the race or be a footnote?

Republican hopefuls, with all that still in flux, are being forced to remain flexible as they make decisions about where to raise and spend money, how and when to start advertising, which debates to accept and reject, and how to operate their campaigns in certain states.

Such questions are hardly new to this presidential campaign, but the unique aspects of this year's race are making the landscape feel like quicksand.

"Disarray, disorganized, and open-ended -- that's where it is right now," said Julian E . Zelizer, a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University, when asked to describe the state of the GOP primary race.

The most recent jolt came last week when Giuliani and McCain revealed that they would not compete in an Aug. 11 straw poll in Ames, Iowa, a once-dominant event in off-year Republican presidential politics whose king-making powers suddenly appear questionable.

Mitt Romney, Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas, and others may still participate, but the decision by Giuliani and McCain has reframed the Iowa race and could signal the state's diminished role in picking the GOP nominee.

Their decision to brush off Ames underscores the seismic shift in what are considered crucial primaries. Where Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina have been the must-win early primary states in the past, big, delegate-rich states such as California, New York, and Illinois have blown up that calculus by moving up their primaries to Feb. 5 or earlier. In Florida, Governor Charlie Crist recently signed a law setting the vote for Jan. 29.

Many GOP observers and campaign aides believe Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina will still significantly shape the race, but the front-loaded calendar has forced campaigns to reassess how they do things. And different campaigns are taking different paths.

Romney has already seized on the withdrawal of McCain and Giuliani from Ames, trying to frame it as evidence that he is the one truly connecting with voters in Iowa, a state in which he has made a big push.

"Campaigns that have decided to abandon Ames are likely doing so out of a recognition that their organizations are outmatched and their message falls flat with Republican voters in Iowa," his campaign boasted in a statement.

But Giuliani's campaign has weighed an approach that effectively cedes Iowa and South Carolina -- neither of which will look kindly on someone they deem a socially liberal Republican, analysts believe -- and instead staking a victory on the emerging "Super Tuesday" of Feb. 5.

Following that unorthodox primary logic, Giuliani would catapult to the nomination by appealing to more socially moderate Republicans in states such as California and New Jersey, where terrorism is deemed a far greater threat than abortion and where electability next November is an overriding concern for voters.

"We want to win Iowa, we want to win New Hampshire, we want to win South Carolina, but we also have a realization that there are a number of other states now that are also going to be part of the process," said one senior Giuliani adviser, who asked to remain anonymous to discuss strategy more frankly.

Some Giuliani supporters are not ready to necessarily concede the more conservative early states because they believe he holds appeal even to the most conservative voter. But they say Giuliani can win by bypassing those states if he has to.

"I believe that Rudy has a phenomenal opportunity to win the nomination," said Terry Neese, who's leading a nationwide effort for Giuliani's campaign to enlist women as supporters. "He appeals to a broad cross-section of people. . . . And appealing to all of these people is the key."

But the states newly in play are expensive ones with large media markets. In past years, analysts say, campaigns could get a lot of mileage out of running relatively cheap local TV spots in cities like Des Moines and Cedar Rapids in Iowa and in Manchester, N.H. Now they will be forced to buy air time in cities such as Miami, Orlando, Fla., Los Angeles, and Sacramento.

That additional expense, as well as the cost of hiring staffs in the new early primary states and having the candidates make frequent trips to them, is what is largely driving the unprecedented level of fund-raising for the 2008 race.

Giuliani's campaign, for example, is building teams in New Jersey and Florida, something it says it would have not done if this year's primary calendar looked like the calendar of years past. Analysts say a top-tier campaign will need to raise $75 million to $100 million this year -- and worry about general election fund- raising later.

In about a month, all candidates for the White House will file second-quarter finance reports with the Federal Election Commission. As happened with the release of the first-quarter reports earlier this spring, the media, opinion-makers, and the political analysts will be watching closely for signs of campaigns' strength or weakness.

Many eyes will be on McCain, who overhauled his fund-raising operation earlier this year after acknowledging a disappointing first-quarter haul of $12.5 million. McCain's campaign has said it hopes to raise $20 million by the end of this month, an ambitious goal he is sure to be measured against.

And McCain needs to put up a strong number just as Thompson, the "Law & Order" actor and a friend from their Senate days, is ramping up his own campaign with a fund-raising push and plans for initial visits to South Carolina and New Hampshire later this month. Thompson already registers in double digits in many polls, and party activists and analysts say he could pose a major threat to the current top tier.

One measure of the uncertainty in the GOP race is the wait-andsee approach candidates are taking to upcoming debates. After engaging in three nationally televised debates in relatively quick succession, none of the three leading campaigns has formally committed to participate in another. Everyone appears to be waiting to see what the competition does.

David Winston, a Republican political consultant not working for any campaign, said that with voters mostly familiar with the leading candidates at this point, he expects the next phase of the campaign to focus on issues.

"Now these folks are going to have to take these experiences that they've had and translate that into . . . 'What am I going to get done as president, and how does that contrast with what my opponents are going to get done?" Winston said.

Scott Helman can be reached at shelman@globe.com.

(Clarification: A Page One story Sunday said Senator John McCain's presidential campaign has said it hopes to raise $20 million by the end of the second quarter. The article should have attributed that figure to prior news reports, including a Washington Post article on April 24. However, the McCain campaign says it has never set such a goal, and has said only that it intends to raise more than it did in the first quarter, which the campaign now says totaled $13.6 million.)